You should definitely just get it on paper. I have had a similar problem with my songwriting. Keeping hold of ideas is imo not looking at the big picture - sitting on and fixing your mind on a small number of ideas stiffles your ability to come up with new ideas - they hold you back. If enough time passes, a hoarded idea can really drag you down ("I have to get around to writing that... ") and then it becomes a chore. There's a lot of neuroscience recently that says you can grow your ability to be creative and invent new ideas. You might not be a fountain of ideas now, but the brain is plastic and will generate more ideas the more you try. Of course you have to let go of the ideas in your closet first. If it bothers you that much, spend a week building a list of every idea (treasured, rubbish, old or new) and eventually you'll have enough ideas to not feel too bad spending one or two now.
Especially considering the act of writing is the biggest generator of ideas. Use your best ideas now without a care for the future. You can always have more. Even if you don't believe you can. Using good ideas creates new ideas. They branch off and it can get very complex. If you don't use them though, they remain cheap seeds in a paper packet.
I just wanted to pitch in my 2 cents, Andrew, for what it's worth: #1. I think every writer struggles from this, so you can rest easier knowing that you're not alone. But if you get great ideas now, you're going to get great ideas in the future, too. And what's better: a blank piece of paper that stays blank because you never wrote down your great ideas, or a flowing manuscript where you actually put your idea into action? #2. I noticed that more people responded to #1, so I'll take some more time to answer #2. It's safe to publish your short stories and sites and expect people to treat it as yours. Your work is protected under copyright as soon as you create it. And there's an unspoken agreement in the writing community that plagiarism and copyright infringement is Very Bad, and not to be done, so the chances of someone else taking your work is extremely slim. As someone else said, there's a process called copyright registration that gives you extra insurance and allows you to take action and sue when someone's infringed on you or something. But I think that's usually for novels and that it's not worth the trouble or money to do so for a short story. Did any of that make sense? Copyright is really such a broad topic, but if you want more assurance you can read this guide on it. #3 Try and make every single word count And read as much as you can! Find out which short story writers you love and try and figure out what makes them tick to you. Then try to put that down onto the page yourself. There are so many great short stories and short story authors out there, it'll be a real blast for you.
Well mine is that nobody will like my writing. (Well a small minority do.) Simply put, don't be afraid to write whatever you want. You can always find help along the way, and you can always edit it to make it better. There is some saying or another, about every story has already been told, but it hasn't been told by you. (Something along them lines.) So keep on writing, and have fun, go nuts. The only real obstacle in your way, is you, no one else. Now let the words flow. "Make it so." -Captain Picard- Star Trek
So you sit down to work on your piece of literature, be it a short story, a novel or a fan fiction story. you are about to start your writing on the piece of paper or screen in front of you (depending on which you are working with) when you suddenly can't think about what to put down. It is like something is blocking your ideas and creative thinking. This is the bane we all have: Writer's Block. Many people think that Writer's Block is something that has started in the Internet Age, but it has been around since humanity started writing down their thoughts. Some of the great authors, such as Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Jack London, Alexandre Dumas, Stephen King and others have all had this problem when working on their stories. It can be caused by almost everything, from stress at work to having too many stories you are working on. It can be a pain in the rear end and can slow a writer down. But this can be cured, mainly by trying to relax and to keep from getting stressed out, as stress it the main cause of Writer's Block. Try taking walks or going somewhere that helps you relax and think. Try doing some chores around your home to clear your mind and soon, you will be back to writing with out any blocks.........for now. Any other thoughts?
Sitting down at the laptop pc, or what ever and telling your self off, for not coming up with any thing good to write, does not help.. its frustrates you further, stresses you further..and gets you worked up.. there is no point.... relaxing is the key, and switching your brain from what you are trying to do, too something completely different. For me its going for a walk, or a nice long shower.. relaxing bath.. with the other halfs arromatherapy candles. You will be surprised what you can come up with, when you least expect it.. allways have a notebook and pen handy.. i say..
================== Before I learned HOW to write I had writers block. Elhi and the uni never taught HOW to write at all. I had to invent a process for writing so I could keep my job. Other people get writers block because they have nothing to say.
============ As I noted above. You need something to say else writers' block will be a problem. How you come up with something to say depends on the type of writing. Is it NF for work, or a novel. The process for the novel needs to include a way to be creative to generate something to write about.
I have gotten to page 230 of my first draft, and I'm stalled out. Nothing I'm writing is coming out the way I want it. My original idea for my next scene is boring in my opinion and I have no desire to write it the way I thought, yet nothing seems to be working. I plan on submitting some of this for review in a short time, but I'm just looking to see what everyone might suggest to help me along. I have 6 completed manuscripts from over the years, but this is the one I am most interested in getting ready for publishing myself. If I have a day off or it is the weekend, I can sit down and sometimes write for 4-6 hours at a time and I get so much done, but lately, I just get frustrated with it and find myself walking away from it. I don't want to walk away from it completely, but I think I'm just tired and I have other ideas for different stories going around in my head and that is distracting me as well. I have written those ideas down to visit them at another date. What does everyone suggest? Thanks in advance!
In "On Writing" by Stephen King, he made a great point about spreading your story out. His suggestion was to write 500 words a day, though if you are like me that is far too little. However, the point is that our imaginations are not linear; ideas come and go. Also take into consideration the number of times you've double-checked your already-written work. After a while you begin to lose sight of your true goal for the book in question. I would suggest taking a deep breath, getting a good night's sleep, and then tomorrow go over the 230 pages you have written, check for grammatical and punctuation errors, and have a voice recorder handy (there's an app called "SuperNote" that I love) so you can note the points where you feel the work is lacking. Then, when the inspiration hits you again, go back to those recorded spots and do not change them, but reword them. Sometimes it is all in the syntax. Hope that helps!
Also, don't be afraid to shift focus as well. I don't write in order anyway, so that is perhaps easier said than done, but if you know something has to happen later on, write that bit, then go back and revisit. And if other projects are calling you, maybe write into one of those for a bit. Take a day or two away from the main work. Nothing wrong with having other irons in the fire. Unless you are branding cattle, and you are heating brands that aren't yours. In that case, best to not have other irons in the fire.
Thank you! That is a great suggestion. I will look at doing that. Thank you as well. I have another idea beating around in my head and I've started writing that out, so I might focus on that for a few days just to clear it out and see if that works out.
Try doing a five minute (or ten minute) freewriting exercise. Just write whatever comes to your head, and do not hit backspace or correct any typos. I do this before writing on my manuscript and when I'm drawing a blank on a specific scene. Basically, it's a writer's rubberduck (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging).
I have worked through a few times when nothing fit, and I was looking into vomit for a few good pieces. Finally I had to wipe out a few thousand words that had painted me into a corner, and resume at speed. Other times I have skipped forward, past my sticking part, and found my pace. Then I went back to catch up to my story.
This may have been addressed in this thread (for all I know several times) but my current theory is that writer's block is the persistent failure/inability to achieve a state of flow while writing. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) It is certainly possible to do many things while not in flow, but it is IMO very different from doing those things while in flow--perhaps different enough as to make one feel that one "can't" do the thing.
Is that your theory for yourself or others? From reading that, I don't think I'm ever in a state of "flow" when writing. When I don't write it's not because I try and can't get in the zone, but because I don't feel like it in the first place. I suspect if I forced myself to write when I didn't feel like it (which I don't, because I don't see the point), the writing would be of the same quality as when I really want to write.
That fits my experience for sure. When I've got flow in writing everything else fades away; even when I'm away from the computer I'm pre-occupied with my story and the characters and the way everything could develop. Super-fun, super-satisfying, and really hard for me to achieve these days. When I started writing I had flow almost immediately - not sure if it was the novelty or what, but I was on fire. Not so much any more...
That's interesting. Any idea why the flow has slowed down? You produce so much work that I assumed you never suffer from this sort of stagnation. You must have tremendous writing energy to STILL produce, even if it's not flowing as well as it used to.
It may just be an excuse, but it's an excuse that I'm currently finding compelling... I think it's the interruptions. Not the life-interruptions, like going to work or seeing friends or whatever, but the writing-related interruptions. Ideally, I think I work best when I have a stretch of time ( a couple months, probably?) to just totally inhabit a certain story. Think about it before I go to sleep, when I'm driving, when I'm gardening, whatever. But when I have a lot of project on the go, it's hard to get that kind of stretch of time. I'll be working one one story and then edits come in for a different one, and while edits aren't as creative as writing itself, I still have to pull myself out of the current story and try to get at least somewhat involved in the other one. The edits only take a couple days, so then I go back to the original story but I've lost my flow and by the time I get it back there's another round of edits or I'm supposed to do promo (and even that, just trying to do an interview and answer questions about a different project seems to be enough to pull my creative brain away from the current story), etc. I'm currently having trouble pulling my brain away from a proposal I did (not for a dream book or anything, but I wrote the first three chapters of it for the proposal and now apparently my brain thinks I should be writing the rest of the book, even though there's no reason to write it until I know if the proposal has been accepted) so that's a distraction from the story I should be working on. According to Wikipedia "flow" shares many characteristics with "hyperfocus", and I guess I'm just having trouble getting that focus going when I have to hop around. Not the end of the world, but not as easy as it used to be!
Yeah, your multiple committments to various stories would drive me cuckoo. Take care that it doesn't suck the joy out of writing for you. That would be such a shame. I'm finding that even beta-reading (which I really enjoy doing) is definitely interfering with my ability to concentrate on my own stories. I need to finish the final editing tweaks of my first novel, and get past Chapter Three of my second one. Instead, I'm thinking about other people's stories, doing detailed feedback, and getting involved in their plots and with their characters and story issues. At some point I'm going to need to stop beta-reading, if I'm ever going to get going again on my own. Like you, I don't mind ordinary 'life' happening along with writing, but trying to dig into more than one or two stories at one time has definitely derailed my creative brain.
Reading may be another factor. I've been a voracious reader my entire life, but when I started writing I stopped reading just about entirely for a couple years. I think it's important that I've started reading again - not only for my writing, but for my quality of life - but it does give me other stories to think about, and sometimes those other ones are so good I want to think about them, not my own...
Yeah. I still read, no bother. I always have a few books on the go. (Mostly non-fiction, but fiction as well.) But because I'm just reading for enjoyment, they don't interfere with my ability to create. I don't think about the books I read for pleasure terms of what might need fixing, or how to sort a problem. It's my 'fixit' head that screws me up, not my 'I love reading' head. I would HATE to lose the pleasure of reading.
For everybody! EVERYBODY! Nah. It's just a theory. I think it applies to me. I suspect it applies to lots of other people. But it remains purely theory. See, I would tie "feel like it" to flow. I realize that by the description of flow, it should only occur while you're actively in the task, rather than pushing you to the task, but I could counter that with the idea that writing starts with thinking and imagery, so that you are in the task when you sit down to type. Again, purely theory, one that I think at least applies to me. There's a mental state where I can see and feel characters and situations and walk through scenes in my head, and tweak one element and go through the scene again and again and again, fully absorbed and fascinated. I suspect that it's related to the brain state that produces dreams. Lately I can't achieve that state. Hmph. FWIW, I'm not talking about quality. I can totally believe that the quality of tie-yourself-to-the-chair writing and eagerly-attacking-the-keyboard writing would be the same. Or even that tie-yourself-to-the-chair writing might be better. But I'm having trouble tying myself to that chair. So I'd like to achieve the flow.
I'm well aware that writer's block is a common -and inevitable- roadblock all writers must face in order to continue their craft however, recently I've had a terrible bout of it that just seems to have no end. I seem to have this terrible curse where, every time I'm right about tobreak through the block or make some sort of writing breakthrough, I get completely torn out of my writing universe and handed a heaping plate of reality. Whether it's a sibling barging in, someone yanking out my earbuds to ask me dumb questions, sacrificing my beloved writing time to two jobs, upcoming college responsibilities, bills, responsibilities, and chores, or having my mom completely wreck my concentration, I can't seem to pass through this block. It feels like everytime I get a grip on things, I relive that scene from Lion King where scar tosses Mufasa (in this case myself) into the stampede of terrible writer's block. I hate it. I've been trying to set aside time to write. My schedule is too crazy and subject to change for me to have a specific hour on the clock where I can devote to writing, but I'm trying the best I can in my situation. I eliminate distractions, put on helpful music, revisit old original written works for inspiration and motivation. But no matter what I do, I can't seem to get over this. Writing holds a very special place in my heart. Whenever the ral owrld is to o much, I turn to writing. Butn ow my escape is becoming frustrating because I can't seem to get myself back into the universe of writing. Its' like trying to pass through a portal and ending up on the otherside of it, but still in the same room. It's undescriptively frustrating, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has dealt with this. Does anybody have some advice? I know getting over this block won't be easy, and I'll have to put in a lot of work in order to pass it, but I'm willing to do so. I just don't really know how to go about conquering this particular case of writer's block. I'd love to hear about any others' methods or coping mechanisms for this intensity of writer's block. Thanks in advance to all who add to this thread.
i recently did a writing therapy workshop that was really insightful. we were given five minutes, and in those five minutes we just wrote. we wrote about our day, what we were thinking about, our frustrations, stupid side thoughts, etc. the idea was that we got all the "crud" out of the way so we could look at what was really on our minds. in my case, i cranked out a whole page of mental blockage. i looked at it when i was finished and literally went "whoa." maybe instead of trying to force it, you should just give yourself permission to write without any expectations. if you wander away from your intended topic, go with it. write about your characters, what you hope for them to be, what you hope you can be as their author, what you want the plot to look like, your hidden fears, your points of pride, whatever. just don't box yourself in. don't give yourself any "shoulds". i was stunned at how liberating writing like that could be. what i would have considered wrong or tangential before was suddenly on the table. moreso, i went back through what i wrote and highlighted parts that were (surprisingly) poignant to me. i could use those things as an impetus for a future five-minute session, or i could weave it in to my story. added bonus: it was deeply personal, which makes it great for writing about in the first place. it's been a difficult idea to swallow for me since i really like having structure. but you might give that a shot and get all the mental clutter out of your way. i'm hoping i can make a habit out of writing like that first thing every morning before i go to work, but we'll see if that actually happens.
